Mobile management entity (MME) load balancing and re-balancing functions allow user equipment (UE) located in an MME pool to be directed to an appropriate MME in a manner that the connections between the UE and the MME are evenly distributed among the MMEs in the MME pool. Since the number of MMEs in the MME pool is static, an MME can be overloaded as the number of UEs entering the networks keeps rising.